


The Elephant Kids

by Pyrosane



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Movie(s), Rehabilitation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 05:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1498654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyrosane/pseuds/Pyrosane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky always did like to talk big.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Elephant Kids

The first time Steve ever stole a car, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. Bucky had pitched the thought and whatever Bucky pitched was what happened next, because Bucky may have been an idiot but he also knew what it meant to be alive.

And it was a real beauty, too.

A Gold-Bug Speedster, made like the money it cost, more expensive than both Bucky and Steve’s lives put together. ( _you’ve got hair yellower than her coat, Steve_. they were orphans, since when did they even deserve to look at such a car?)

It was all very fast but painfully slow, a steady rhythm settling in Steve’s chest as he stood by Bucky’s anxious thievery. It never truly hit Steve that he was helping (morally supporting) his best friend commit a crime until it was too late and they were couched on leather, Bucky’s restless feet slamming the gas and fists pounding his chest. They took her for a spin or two, maybe three, until Steve began coughing himself hoarse and Bucky grew worried but all Steve could choke out was _Buck, we’ve gotta take her back_. They left the car at the diner they found it. The next time they came around, it was gone. (the second time Steve ever steals a car, he is ninety three years old and still choking on his own breath, although this time it is not because of any asthma.)

Bucky liked to promise Steve a lot of things, too. Even impossible things, like interstellar space travel and seeing Steve with worn wrinkles against his own. (it’s funny how plans change.) Things about aging and being there to witness Stark Expo displays become common household items. The car in their next great heist would fly. Steve would laugh along and tell Bucky to quit kidding around, there would probably be robot cops in the future. (there aren’t robot cops but there are disasters still. cars have kept wheels but they now have seat warmers, and Steve can see Bucky’s chimerical smiles in every rearview mirror.)

A tree and a twin set of hands. Those are the things that come to Steve’s mind just before he shuts his eyes to a dark that is still miles lighter than his years spent on ice, a shy longing planting itself in Steve’s mind like a soldier trapped in a trench. His very own floor in a big, ugly building in New York, so far from home. It’s how he make-believes. He was born after disco grew boring but before the Berlin wall came crashing down, a boy with fugue memories of a past that isn’t there. And he never goes back to Brooklyn anymore. It’s nearly impossible to keep pretending in a city that was his but then wasn’t; his name spins circles still. The lights spell out Steve and Bucky’s names in the only way he has come to recognize them: stuck. ( _wouldn’t b and s be better? BS for bullshit, ‘cause it’s bullshit that I love you this much. you’re a punk, you know that?_ )

Everything is banal, kind of. Natasha comes around more often than not. Steve would never admit it, but he enjoys the company. She teaches him things, important things, like the names of famous dead people (Steve’s name is no longer on that list) and musical numbers from this movie and that. Steve finds himself humming show tunes from films about princesses filled with curiosity and courage, much to his chagrin and Tony’s amusement. (Tony never shuts up about it but Steve knows for a fact that Tony belts in the shower.)

Steve finds that the future is full of things both incredible and trivial. He wanders markets in search for trinkets that he leaves atop his drawers. His favorite is a red mug with the words _Keep Calm And Carry On_. He drinks from it fondly as if with it he shares an inside joke of some sort. And maybe he does, because he distinctly remembers seeing those same words tacked onto a creased poster in a foxhole once, occupied just nights before by a British soldier he never knew. Strange how the world works; he went under and came up only to find that a string of letters had beat him to it. It is like he is rebuilding himself or something, becoming whole without really intending to. Bucky would have loved the mug, Steve is sure of it.

Speaking of Bucky.

Steve sees Bucky on a bridge and Steve sees Bucky in blood, a twin set of hands in red. Steve sees Bucky raise a gun to pull the trigger before pushing down a fist, eyes feral but heart still intact. Steve sees Bucky’s face as he falls, falls, falls.

Bucky sees Steve in a bed at a hospital, out cold like the metal impairment lodged into Bucky’s left side. Bucky sees Steve in flashes of color that is his own static memory, a fresh-faced boy with one too many bruises and not enough fists to keep up in a fight. ( _I had him on the ropes, Buck_.)

“He’s a threat,” is all Steve hears, to which he always replies the same thing:

“He’s a friend.”

The floor right beneath Steve’s belongs to Bucky, but it does not look like it belongs to anyone. It looks like it belongs to nobody, which Bucky has essentially become. A ghost, a shadow, a hand that threw punches for Steve a long, long time ago. There is nothing but unsullied couches and bare white walls. Bucky’s feet never seem to graze the floor and his eyes never seem to register the space. He is there but he is not, glancing over every tile frame like he glances over Steve some days. Every day, Steve goes to visit, and every day, Bucky remembers a little bit more but not enough. Bucky remembers the fall and the dark and the whistling of wind, but he does not recall his favorite flavor of ice cream nor that damn dame Joan Fontaine. (perhaps it’s better that he doesn’t, steve thinks. bucky never did get that dance with her that he swore to steve he would get. but then again, steve also once promised a dance that never happened.)

Steve knows that Bucky watches him. After Steve turns the lamps off, he settles in the sheets and breathes evenly because if Bucky wanted to kill him, he would have already done so. No, Steve sleeps soundly with his eyes closed but with his ears open, listening to the absolute nothing that he has regretfully come to associate with Bucky.

(but Steve never stops putting on a smile for Bucky and he never stops pretending that he has no idea, _no idea_ , that Bucky sees right through him.)

Therefore, memory is relative, Bucky’s to Steve, and Steve’s to, well-

well.

It’s not much, but Bucky does begin to at least try meeting Steve’s eyes when talking (whispering).

What Steve says is more precious than text, he supposes, because Bucky stops reading about himself and starts listening instead.

Bucky starts laughing, slowly, heavily. (Steve tells Bucky to read the internet for information, to which Bucky says _you’re a real riot, Steve. Always have been. What search engine do you even use?_ Steve can’t remember what a search engine is and he narrows his eyes because Stark doesn’t teach Steve these things, so why does he teach Bucky?)

Bucky starts feeling as well, a little at first, and then all at once. Bucky’s walls are still white but his bed is left unmade, and Steve feels a swell of relief at the idea of a machine making Bucky’s bed for him instead. Bucky’s favorite ice cream flavor decidedly becomes cotton candy craze, and he likes to bicker with Steve over the remote. ( _Talk about taking all the stupid with you! Geez, Buck, you’re keeping up with the Kardashians now? Come on, just one episode of Breaking Bad. It’s what we won the war for, I promise_.) Neither ever mention that Steve could, really, just go one floor up to a TV of his own.

But nothing is ever enough for Steve, always falling short of what he wants, what he _needs_ , and his manic determination turns to manic desperation when he leans in for a hug (an arm swung over a shoulder, just like good ol’ times, _remember when you made me ride the Cyclone at Coney Island? Yeah, well this is payback_.), but all he gets in response is a whimper and suddenly, distance.

So.

So, Bucky is a thatched roof.

And.

And, Steve is what has to be mended.

Bucky is scathing. Bucky is larger than life, and Steve still looks up to Bucky as if Bucky isn’t broken or anything.

They are casual conversations in the kitchen. Bucky remembers exactly how Steve liked his coffee and Steve never bothers to tell him that no, that’s not how he drinks his coffee anymore.

Bucky is, is. Wow. Bucky is the guy who pulls out milk from the fridge and holds it up to Steve.

“Milk?” Bucky asks.

“Sure.” Steve answers. Bucky grabs a glass and pours maybe an inch of milk into it before handing it to Steve, and Steve doesn't really know what to make of it. “Only this much milk?”

“Yeah. Isn’t that, that’s what-” Bucky stops, and Steve immediately wants to take his words back. “Last guy I saw drink milk only poured that much. So I figured…” Bucky does not bother finishing.

“Oh.” And Steve takes the glass, drinks the milk, puts the glass back down and says “Buck, you can pour a lot more milk if you want to. Or you can keep the glass practically empty. Whatever you want.”

Steve holds his breath when Bucky looks surprised, but when Bucky shrugs, it’s like the world has been lifted from Steve’s shoulders.

Because.

Because even if Bucky never gets better, Steve prays to God that Bucky won’t ever get any worse.

****  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> AP exams in less than a month, and I'm here writing fics on these two.


End file.
